To Freedom
by Taywen
Summary: None of the victors will ever be free; least of all Haymitch. *Written for Starvation Forum's June prompt: Toast.*


Disclaimer: Hunger Games does not in any way belong to me, it's the property of Suzanne Collins, etc.

Written for Starvation Forum's June prompt, '**Toast**'.

* * *

><p><strong>To Freedom<strong>

[ now ]

Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the 50th Hunger Games, the 2nd Quarter Quell, is staring at the burned-out husk of two Seam shacks.

At some point, he dimly notices that he's fallen to his knees in the scorched grass, mindless of the fancy Capitol clothes he is wearing, of the fresh-baked loaf of bread that has fallen from nerveless fingers.

_You'll have something to look forward to, when you get back,_ she'd said. He's too late, too _late_ – again. (He always was; always will be.)

People are crowding hesitantly at his back, as if afraid to touch him; they are talking urgently to him, but all Haymitch can hear is a husky voice sneering, _it's your loss District 12_.

He knows what President Snow had meant, now, when he'd lifted his glass, serpentine eyes glittering with poorly-hidden malice: _a toast to your victory, Mr. Abernathy. May you enjoy it._

[ then ]

It was a simple matter to visit his girlfriend; she lived right next door to his family's house, after all, and Haymitch spent more time in his old house than the extravagant, empty house in the Victor's Village.

In the months between his victory and the subsequent Victory Tour, Haymitch had kept himself distant from her (he couldn't look at her – Seam-brown hair and coal-grey eyes – without thinking of merchant-blonde hair and candy-blue eyes) but she waited patiently and didn't pressure him.

Haymitch had dark circles under his eyes, but his grey gaze remained alert and he looked a lot more like he had before the Hunger Games than he had in a long time. The nightmares that plagued him – dull crimson blood staining pretty blonde hair and impossibly green grass littered with fluorescent pink corpses – prevented him from getting much sleep, guilt keeping him awake long into the night after the dreams woke him.

If Haymitch was honest with himself, he wanted to move on and put the events of the Quarter Quell behind him – he wanted to be free of the stifling guilt and endless thoughts of_ what if_. What if he'd followed her. What if he hadn't insisted they find the limits of the arena. What if he had gotten there even a few seconds sooner.

Familiar coal-grey eyes watched him walk up the short path to the front door. Haymitch almost lost his nerve, but he had been watching to make sure that her parents were gone for the day, off to work. He had to leave on his Victory Tour in an hour – this was the last chance he was going to get.

She took pity on him and opened the door before he could raise his hand to knock.

"Haymitch," she said, ushering him into the modest home. When he'd returned from the Games, she had jumped into his arms, and it was only with a great force of will that Haymitch hadn't thrown her to the ground, hands scrambling for a weapon that he no longer possessed. Since then, she had learned to keep her distance.

For the first time in – well, months – he really looked at her. She was as beautiful as he remembered, olive-skinned and grey-eyed as he was. There was a faintly worried look in her eyes, but she was smiling welcomingly. Nothing about her, from her appearance to her mannerisms to her personality, was similar to the blonde-haired girl Haymitch had entered the Hunger Games with.

(He purposely did not think about the fact that said blonde had come to be foremost in his thoughts, even over his girlfriend.)

Haymitch might have said her name, as he pulled her into his arms, wanting to savour these last few moments of familiarity before being whisked off to the train station and the other Districts; culminating, he had no doubt, with a visit to President Snow in the Capitol. "Marry me," he blurted out, with none of his trademark snark. "We can do the toasting now, and-"

"Haymitch!" the screeching voice of his stylist reached him. A glance confirmed that, yes, the man was standing outside the yard but given the quality of Capitol manners (or their sense of entitlement, rather) he probably wouldn't hesitate to walk right up to them if Haymitch didn't come quickly.

His arms tightened instinctively around her. She smiled up at him. "We haven't got any bread, in any case," she told him. "When you get back..." The promise was there, implicit. "You'll have something normal to look forward to, after visiting the rest of Panem!" Then she leaned up and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, gone before he even realized what she'd done.

They had a moment to exchange goodbyes and then his stylist was there, pulling him away, scolding him for not getting enough sleep, losing weight...

Haymitch couldn't shake the feeling that he was too late; he had waited too long, and now he had to leave her. But she would be there when he returned, he told himself.

[ before then ]

Haymitch had seen the vastness of the Quarter Quell's arena, and his only thought had been _there must an end to it._ He had known, before the gong even sounded, that for all the illusion of endless trees and impassable mountains, that the arena was a cage – but cages had limits, and bars, and it shouldn't be too hard to slip between them, right?

Haymitch had struck out alone, to find the boundaries of the arena. He had never taken to confinement well, spent hours at a time staring at the chain-link fence separating the District from the wild, trying to avoid returning home empty-handed, again. With no rules other than ensuring his own survival, Haymitch had the opportunity to find the freedom he had always been searching and yearning for.

(Actually, the only thing of worth that he had found was another shackle to weigh him down, in the form of a pretty blonde girl.)

Haymitch and the girl with candy-blue eyes had found the bars of the cage, the gaps between them blocked by some sort of reflective forcefield. It was at that point that the girl left him – but only for a little while, before he heard her screams and ran to her and –

He had been too late.

He had felt so angry, then. Haymitch was smart; he knew perfectly well what her death had meant. It meant that the Capitol wanted him, not her.

Haymitch had tracked down the remaining competitor: 'Career', female, blonde – but nothing like the shackle he had felt (still could feel) weighing on his conscience, the one smile that she had graced him with playing behind his eyelids every time he closed his eyes.

He had run again, trying not to look down because he was afraid he'd throw up (was that possible, with his guts hanging out like he could feel they were?) and just barely made it to the edge of the cage.

"It's your loss, District 12!" the Career had taunted; and hurled her axe at his back, not knowing about the forcefield. It had come spinning back, and buried itself in her chest.

With the sounding of her cannon, Haymitch had finally been free from the gilded arena.

[ next ]

Haymitch will sit in his empty, lifeless house – exquisite like everything else that has been created by the Capitol but a cage is a cage is a cage – and he will despair.

Sometimes, he will fall asleep from pure exhaustion; he'll wake up screaming from nightmares of blonde-haired Careers with snake-like eyes and bloody breath, in the background are shrieking pink birds and dimming candy-blue eyes and rising flames –

He will rip the cord of his phone out of the wall, and thoroughly destroy the two spare bedrooms.

A girl with blonde hair (or is it brown) and grey eyes (but that's not right, they should be blue) will be visible every time he closes his eyes; and his siblings, his mother – everyone who was ever important, burned into his mind (as most of them burned in their crappy Seam shack).

Eventually, more and more people will be added to them; two more each year, mostly brown-haired and grey-eyed, but occasionally blondes with blue eyes – all children he will be powerless to save.

A few weeks after the fire, Haymitch will walk into the Hob, his pockets heavy with the money from his victory.

(The money will never run out, with only one person to support.)

He will buy as many bottles of white liquor that he can carry from a one-armed woman named Ripper and return home with the intention of drinking until he cannot even think, much less remember.

Haymitch won't bother with the fancy glasses that the Capitol stocked his house (cage) with but will drink straight from the thin-necked bottles.

After three bottles – possibly four – he will raise the next to the invisible audience behind his eyelids, who will all be staring at him with various looks of disapproval or disappointment.

"A toast – to freedom," Haymitch will say cynically, his speech not quite slurred, but almost there.

* * *

><p>AN: True story – I was going to write a fic about President Snow using this prompt... But then I actually started writing it and it was pretty crappy, and I had this way better idea about Haymitch and: here we are.

First time really writing Haymitch... Hopefully I did him justice!

Feedback of any sort is always greatly appreciated, just in case you were wondering ~ ;)


End file.
